Hospitals and long-term care facilities must have an evacuation plan in case of emergency. They need to efficiently evacuate the patients very rapidly. This represents a major challenge because most patients have diminished physical capability and cannot evacuate the building on their own. Some patients need to be transported out of the building by other people. This is normally done using a stretcher to carry the patient. The patient is secured to the stretcher before moving the stretcher outside the building using emergency exits.
Elevators should not normally be used during emergency evacuation. This is to prevent the case someone from getting stuck inside the elevator in case of a mechanical failure or power outage. Patients must therefore evacuate using the safety staircases. This is particularly difficult in building having several floors. Patients having a condition requiring the use of a stretcher must also be transported out of the building using the staircases. Conventionally, stretchers can be slid on the stairs to increase the evacuation speed and reduce the number of people required to carry each stretcher. This requires the help of at least one additional person to control the movement of the stretcher on the stairs.
Furthermore, a stretcher in a staircase may easily become cumbersome and may prevent other people from using the stairs during the evacuation process. Conversely, a stretcher that slides directly on the stairs in a staircase might become difficult to control during emergency evacuation. The stretcher must be restrained by another person who helps to prevent it from sliding down the stairs. If the stretcher goes down the stairs too quickly the patient may get an uncomfortable ride.
The patient should be safely secured to the stretcher even if the stretcher is inclined during passage in staircases. Other devices (such as a number of straps) are needed to secure and ensure proper protection of the patient on the stretcher. The patient's head might also need to be safely secured to the stretcher in the case of cervical injuries thus preventing further deterioration of the condition of the patient.
Emergency evacuation stretchers are rarely used. They will spend most of their time in a patient's room in storage and should take a limited amount of space. However, since a stretcher needs to be assembled in a short period of time, the time to assemble the stretcher and the complexity of the assembly should be limited to a minimum.
Conventional stretchers, while adequate for their intended purposes, are not optimal.